


il mio protettore

by Uzulover



Series: Behind the veil [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Bittersweet, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 10:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18991174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uzulover/pseuds/Uzulover
Summary: While on the run, Steve remembers.





	il mio protettore

**Author's Note:**

> So according to Google translate, that is Italian for "my protector"  
> Also I embellished Tony's background so you're warned.

No one has ever asked about the necklace.  
Even though they have seen him hold it in his hands, especially on the rough days when they can't save everyone.  
It's a silver necklace with a pendant of the patron Saint, Anthony of Padua.  
It's his source of strength in trying times and today he needs the familiar weight to anchor him. He cradles the pendant in his large hands and finishes up his prayer just in time to hear Sam enter the small hotel room. "You're staring at it again" Sam says as he crosses over to him, handing him a bottle of water to ease the discomfort of the sweltering heat. "Whose was it? Your mother's or your father's?" he dares to ask as he sits down on the bed opposite from his, gulping down water from his own bottle. Steve smiles as he tucks the necklace back into his pocket.  
They've all heard his story many times before, born to poor Irish immigrant parents who had been devout Catholics, so naturally they think it belongs to either one of them.  
He doesn't blame them for thinking otherwise but what they fail to realize is that Steve has hidden parts of himself from them. They don't know his entire story.  
No one ever does.  
"Tony gave it to me" Steve says and he doesn't hold back the chuckle as Sam sends him the most incredible "Oh Shit" faces he's ever seen.  
"You don't say" Sam says, his tone careful and cautious as ever whenever the topic of Tony surfaces among them.  
Steve nods and looks out at the splashes of pink that paints the setting horizon.  
"It was his mother's" Steve adds and he can't look at Sam as his pocket feels that much heavier with such an admission. 

 

Sometimes, Tony gets so quiet that it worries Steve.  
He doesn't eat, doesn't sleep, doesn't create anything in the lab, instead he just sits in his room and stares out at the city beneath them.  
Steve understands it well, can see the grief hidden behind those eyes of his that he adores and he always wishes that he can reassure him, to comfort him, but he's never been good with that sort of thing. (Neither is Tony)  
Instead, he would leave him on his own, so that he could bury the ghosts that keep haunting him.  
He moves to leave again, when something catches his eye. The necklace that always remain hidden in Tony's bedside drawer next to a weathered Bible and crystal rosary, is in his clasped hands.  
"It's St. Anthony" the other man tells him and Steve arches an eyebrow at him, though he doesn't step over the threshold.  
He's never considered Tony a religious person.  
He hasn't seen or heard him pray aloud and Steve is ashamed to admit that once, he had thought that a man who immersed himself in so much science would certainly have no interest in something like God.  
Yet, despite that, throughout the time spent together, he has seen him with the necklace, eyes closed as though he's offering up a word to the heavens. "There were problems" he starts and Steve feels his body move towards him. He gingerly sits on the other side of Tony who moves a little away from him.  
"When Maria married Howard, everyone knew, hell even she knew that they would have problems conceiving. Howard was already old and even though no one knew, infertility ran in Maria's blood. So after two years of marriage and still she hadn't produced an heir, she flew back to Italy. She had to see her mother because Mama knew best" Tony tells him. Steve remains silent as always whenever he gets the privilege of learning about Maria or Howard. "So Mama gives her the necklace her own Mama gave her and she tells her to ask St. Anthony for help. And Maria, who had once forgotten about the God who had helped her to marry her American Titan, drops to her knees and begs for a son. She fasts for an entire month, doesn't eat or drink for days until they have to force an I.V on her. She pleads until her knees are black and blue. She prays in Italian, English and even in Latin to a God she doesn't even believe in anymore. When Howard finally gets her back, he's forced to hide her away because he doesn't want her to embarrass him. It's the last time she ever gets to visit Italy but what they don't know is that the trip pays off. Because two months later, when she goes in for food poisoning, the doctor tells her that she's pregnant" Tony says, clutching onto the necklace. " She doesn't dare tell Howard of her suspicions, but Maria always felt that the patron saint helped her, so when I was born, she fought Howard until he finally relented and they named me Anthony" Tony whispers as he looks out the window, lost in the memories of a life that had never been kind to him, with parents who did not have it in them to translate feelings of love to their vulnerable child, instead they left that job to their English butler and his wife.  
Tony jolts when fingers caress his forearm, and when he looks back at Steve, his breath catches in a ruined chest. Since they have started this thing [Tony refuses to label it because he has this fear that once he uses the B word, that it will splinter at the seams], he isn't stiff with tension.  
Steve is a man who carries the bodies of his loved ones every where he goes, and so his own body has always been taunt.  
He doesn't relax, because if he only loosens the hold he has on his control, Tony knows he will shatter.  
Another part of Tony, the one that suspiciously sounds like Howard, snarls at him and tells him that Steve will never let go of that hold he has, because of guilt.  
He would never allow himself to be happy, because he will feel like he is betraying the ones who didn't survive like he did.  
So to see the fondness in those blue eyes directed at him, to see how the tenderness manages to smooth out the graphite-like expression that seem to keep others at an arms length, always takes his breath away.  
Because he isn't comforted by the formidable tactical Captain but by the sometimes elusive Steve, the Brooklyn kid who fought even though he got his ass kicked just because he hated bullies.  
His fingers tremble as Steve tugs his body across the space between them, and he smiles as the cotton sheets gives way like a ship gliding through the ocean. "Come here" Steve commands, though his voice is not harsh as it is when he's in charge. Tony inhales the sweetness of his cologne, the one that Natasha had given him for his birthday, the one that Steve once admitted, smelled like something his father wore. He presses his face into the soft skin of his neck, and breathes until the only thing he can smell is Steve.  
Thick arms wrap around his waist, and calloused hands stroke down his back, offering up a place for Tony to hide.  
He feels the pain slip away the longer he remains in Steve's embrace, and for a mere second, Tony can see their future stretched before them.  
When he thinks about spending his life with Steve he can't help the pleased shivers that scatter down his spine.  
Steve uses careful hands and hoists him into his lap.  
Tony laughs as he shifts his legs so that they are resting on the bed behind Steve and he opens his eyes to see that they're almost eye level for once.  
He feels light headed with the realization that this grumpy asshole makes him happy, who liked to hog all the sheets, who wore socks with sandals because he hated cold feet, who likes to search for sun spots in the tower so he can curl up and draw until the sun goes down, who always went to war with Clint using puns, who disliked dishonest men yet cheated at poker which always turned Thursdays into 'Dodge the angry Russian' and loved children so much, he would volunteer at the hospital so he could offer comfort to the little ones who doesn't deserve to suffer like they do.  
He feels so overwhelmed with like for this man, that Tony makes his decision. Steve jerks as he slips the necklace around his neck, as the cold silver touched his skin. "For protection" he tells him and Steve sets wide eyes on him.  
"And who is going to protect you?" Steve asks, his voice thick with an emotion that Tony refuses to decode. He leans forward and Steve arches an eyebrow as Tony kisses his nose before pulling away.  
"I don't know. Maybe Bruce" he says with a cheeky shrug. He yelps as Steve stands, carrying all of Tony's weight with him, as Tony clutches at sturdy shoulders and wraps his legs tighter around that trim waist. "Asshole" Tony hisses when he feels the laughter vibrating through the man. He freezes when plump lips presses a light kiss on his sensitive neck.  
"Thank you" Steve whispers and Tony nods, wishing that days like these can last forever.

**Author's Note:**

> So not as angsty as the first two because it's a flashback.  
> They were cute together, right?


End file.
